You can find them on the terrain types listed for their kind (seems to be working correctly now, so they spawn on their listed terrains). They have a random chance to spawn on any empty terrain square on any planet as soon as you enter the square, so you have to hunt in the open, not on terrain squares with cities built on them. Helps to hunt in a ship with high sensors, or carry macrobinoculars with you so you can unboard and look around. If you see nothing on the square, go to another (or just leave the square and return, but having two adjacent empty squares to move between helps).

You cannot capture a creature, only kill them, but there is a small (very small) chance for the creature to drop a Mysterious Egg when you kill it, which you can hatch into that type of creature using the incubator found in any ranch, wildlife preserve, or zoo.

Bring a weapon, armor, medical supplies, and macrobinoculars, ideally (although all but the weapon are optional, they just make life easier). You can also bring NPCs or droids along with you to hunt, for more damage output. You may want a high dexterity skill and high weapon skill for better damage output and hit chance, high dodge to avoid getting hit, high strength for more HP, high perception to improve your personal sensor range, and high med skill if you wish to improve the healing done by your medical supplies.

You can hunt creatures that have no creature weapons (see creature rules) and you will take no damage as they will not hit you. Or if you have enough different types of weapons, you can simply find a weapon that will allow you to hit them outside of their weapon range, so you avoid taking damage.

Creatures do move around the squares a bit, so be prepared to chase them down if you don't kill them quickly enough. Their movement seems fairly random. Sometimes they won't move for days, and sometimes they just never seem to stop moving.

If you leave the square, all creatures/NPC bandits will despawn, and new stuff may spawn when you return to it. Good thing to keep in mind if you're about to go somewhere else but have some creatures at low health sitting around; finish them off first.

I'd note too that to get the weapons ranges and damages of the various critters, you need to go to their specific page and curse over the weapon under the Details section. Then try to attack from outside that range.

What is the current status with PC's and NPC's as regards hunting toxics, no atmosphere planets and asteroids, oceans and gas giants? For instance, if one tries to exit their ship onto a planetoid with no atmosphere, what happens to them and their NPC's? Is there a way to hunt volcanic terrain without turning all barbecue?

____________

My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion. He said okay, you're ugly too.

Environmental damage ticks at 17:00 server. So presumably you can avoid it if you're being attentive, and just board your ship before it ticks. As it's percentage based on your current HP rather than your total HP, it won't kill you anyhow, though.

So environmental damage from vacuum, toxic, ocean and volcanic is the same as from heat and cold? I have always wondered what would happen if I tried to disembark over a volcano to hunt the bandits hiding there.

____________

My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion. He said okay, you're ugly too.

Ok so going hunting without a weapon isn't possible at all? What if you're one big Wookie and would prefer to choke a creature/bandit to death instead of using a blaster or a blade? (not my case, i am clearly not a Wookie)

Weapons are super cheap at NPC shops, though (and they're located at all race starting cities -- not faction starting cities!), so there'd be no real benefit to going unarmed anyway; the weapon damage would always outperform your raw strength.